Presentation on the results of the iLearnRW project at IISA 2015 in Corfu, July 2015.

1. Dyslexia Friendly Reader
Prototype, Designs, and Exploratory Study
Dominik Lukeš
Dyslexia Action
www.ilearnrw.eu

2. Outline
• Difficulties to moderate
• Reader research
• Current state of reader apps
• Towards and ideal reader app
• Description of a reader prototype
• Preliminary user study results
• Future direction

3. Dyslexic difficulties
• Decoding
• Working memory
• Rapid naming
• Long, rare words
• Focus
• Vision (rare)
• Speed

4. Typical modification
• Font type – small impact
• Colours – only useful for small numbers
• Avoid underline, ALL CAPS, italics, justify,
centre – small-med impact
• Font size – big impact
• Line spacing – medium-big impact
• Small chunks – big impact
– Lists – medium impact
– Structure/outline – medium impact
– Small amount of text displayed – big impact
• Audio – biggest impact

5. Readers
• Readers associated with well-known e-book
shops (Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play
Books)
• Mainstream standalone readers not
associated with a particular e-book repository
(Aldiko Reader, Cool Reader, FB Reader,
Moon+ Reader)
• Alternative readers aimed at specific
audiences or formats (Ideal Group Reader,
AutoReader, SpeedReader, Repligo Reader,
ezPDF Reader)

6. Typical reader features
• Basic features for navigating the text. This
includes page turning and outline navigation.
However, the implementation of these
features is not uniform across readers.
• All readers also allow the user some level of
customization of text display. The level of
customisation varies by reader as does the
interface.

7. Typical reader features (cont.)
• Access to the basic copy of text (unless
prevented by digital rights management).
• Management of books using a library and a
file browser.
• Highlighting, notes and bookmarks.

8. Features of some readers only
• Text to Speech
– Varied quality
– Best implemntations (Moon+ Reader Pro,
VoiceDream Reader, and ezPDF Reader)
– Buggy implementations (FB Reader, Cool Reader)
• Online book repositories (Free, commercial,
specialised – e.g. Bookshare)
• Multiple format support

9. Rare features
• Adobe ID (for library loans access)
• Plug ins (FB Reader and Cool Reader)
• Chunking and autoscroll (AutoReader and
Speed Reader)
• Rolling blinds

10. Usability vs features
• Feature rich
(FB Reader, Cool Reader)
• Design and features
• Minimalist
• Design focused (Voicedream Reader, Bluefire
reader)

13. 5 General Recommendations
1. Focus on usability and clean interface
2. Balance feature completeness with the
accessibility of key features = presets
3. Use icons, sliders + steps.
4. Text-to-speech is essential to accessibility and
must be implemented reliably and provide
basic navigation features.
5. Controlling the amount of text displayed on
screen + autoscroll

14. Text to speech

15. Chunking

16. Guidance mode: Word support

17. Guidance mode: Text highlighting

18. Guidance mode: Pre-reading activities

19. Structure and navigation

20. Reader prototype

21. Prototype presets

22. Preliminary study
• Presented to 60 students 9-11 in 5 English
schools and two through Dyslexia Action
centres
• Prototype reader pre-loaded with short texts
• Reading in class (groups of 5)
• Tablet home use
• Some students progressed to Moon+ Pro

23. Preliminary study results
• Overall positive reactions from students
• Playback functionality immediately utilised by
students
• Most students claimed to have used the
reader at home, some regularly. This is an
increase over their regular reading patterns.
• During sessions, students were able to answer
questions about the text they read, some
volunteering more information.

24. Preliminary study results (Cont.)
• Students varied in the mode they preferred to
access text. Most used text-to-speech at least
part of the time. Some before or after reading
without it. Several only read without sound.
• During sessions, sometimes students would
switch from playing games to using the reader.
Several calling it the ‘reading game’.
• Several students admitted to listening to the
texts in bed, one to falling asleep to them.

25. Preliminary study results (Cont.)
• One student described taking the tablet when
visiting family members and listening while
they watched “boring shows”.
• Several students attributed their reading
improvements to using the reader.
• Many students appreciated the factual nature
of the texts included but some asked for
fiction.
• One student admitted that even though he
preferred Audible, he still listened to the texts.

26. Preliminary study results (Cont.)
• Several students asked for more texts having
read all those provided (the reader came
bundled with about 80 texts of 300-500
words). When asked, students in one school
generated a list of over twenty books they
would like included with the reader.

27. Conclusions
• Significant accessibility and usability gaps in
current reader apps (even those with
accessibility focus)
• Speech focused reader have a huge
transformative potential for struggling readers
• Readers without full implementation of text-
to-speech cannot be seen as accessible
• Other features still need more research
• Gaps in the chain of text discovery, text
acquisition and reading

28. Next steps
• PAIR (Producing Active and Independent
Readers) – project by Dyslexia Action to
introduce reading with tablets to schools
• Working with reader app producers to
incorporate some of these features
• Working with document repositories
(Load2Learn, Bookshare to integrate with
reader apps)

29. www.ilearnrw.eu